This research centers on the fabrication, characterization, and engineering of inverse
opal scaffolds, a novel class of three-dimensional (3D) porous scaffolds made of
biocompatible and biodegradable polymers, for applications in tissue engineering and
regenerative medicine. The unique features of an inverse opal scaffold include a highly
ordered array of pores, uniform and finely tunable pore sizes, high interconnectivity, and
great reproducibility.
The first part of this work focuses on the fabrication and functionalization of inverse
opal scaffolds based on poly(D,L-lactic-co-glycolic acid) (PLGA), a biodegradable
material approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA). The advantages of
the PLGA inverse opal scaffolds are also demonstrated by comparing with their
counterparts with spherical but non-uniform pores and poor interconnectivity.
The second part of this work shows two examples where the PLGA inverse opal
scaffolds were successfully used as a well-defined system to investigate the effect of pore
size of a 3D porous scaffold on the behavior of cell and tissue growth. Specifically, I
have demonstrated that i) the differentiation of progenitor cells in vitro was dependent on
the pore size of PLGA-based scaffolds and the behavior of the cells was determined by
the size of individual pores where the cells resided in, and ii) the neovascularization
process in vivo could be directly manipulated by controlling a combination of pore and
window sizes when they were applied to a mouse model.
The last part of this work deals with the novel application of photoacoustic
microscopy (PAM), a volumetric imaging modality recently developed, to tissue
engineering and regenerative medicine, in the context of non-invasive imaging and
quantification of cells and tissues grown in PLGA inverse opal scaffolds, both in vitro
and in vivo. Furthermore, the capability of PAM to monitor and quantitatively analyze
the degradation of the scaffolds themselves was also demonstrated.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:GATECH/oai:smartech.gatech.edu:1853/50231 |
| Date | 13 January 2014 |
| Creators | Zhang, Yu |
| Contributors | Xia, Younan |
| Publisher | Georgia Institute of Technology |
| Source Sets | Georgia Tech Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Archive |
| Language | en_US |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Dissertation |
| Format | application/pdf |
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